Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 228
Tuesday, September 08, 2015, 06:00 PM
Meredith did most of this so I will have to update it if I missed anything. Anyway, we had a shrimp salad. The main thing was Meredith made her favorite cilantro dip/sauce. She actually doubled it but only 1.5x the oil. Anyway, she marinated some shrimp in the sauce and then cooked it on the cast-iron grill-pan (see the photo below).
For the salad, she made a dressing with the green chili stuff, a bit more olive oil, some salt, and lemon juice. The salad also had cherry tomatoes and avocado. I put red-onion in mine but Meredith didn't have any.
It was a pretty good meal. Not too much work (especially for me :-) ) but also healthy and flavorful.
Monday, September 07, 2015, 12:00 AM
Meredith and I made quick ramen like last time. Again, we basically just winged it with some chicken broth, miso (mixed into a small thing of warm broth then added), soy sauce, plus some tahini. We also topped it with green onions and some toasted sesame oil.
The real change this time was that we used zucchini noodles (raw). They were fine. Certainly nowhere near as good as real ramen noodles but much healthier!
Sadly, the broth this time was really just not as good. I do not know what was different this time. It wasn't bad per se, but certainly lacked the flavor and mouthfeel. Also, I we do not know if it was the green onion or the sesame oil (or all the veggies) but it reminded us more of wontons soup than ramen.
While the soup wasn't as good, the eggs were more of a mixed bag. Texture wise, they were almost dead on. I am still figuring out the times for Albuquerque (~6000 ft in elevation) but 9 minutes steaming then into cold(ish) water did the trick. They were a nice texture and held together.
Rather than go with the Serious Eats ramen egg suggestions, I just did 2 Tbsp mirin, 2 Tbsp (low sodium) soy, and 1 Tbsp sugar.
You can see the marinating below. They were fine with this but could have used much more time marinating.
Saturday, September 05, 2015, 08:00 AM
We had a breakfast of leftover pimento cheese plus some Chipotle Cherry bacon from Whole Foods. We also had some fried eggs, and toast from the leftovers.
Pretty simple and easy breakfast.
Friday, September 04, 2015, 08:00 PM
Meredith's parents were in town and we had been telling them about this meal so we decided to try to make it again. It was a group effort with the Huffsmith family helping.
We followed the same recipe as last time except that we halved it. There is a good bit of just playing involved and tasting the different things. We made the same changes as last time (including tabasco, smoked paprika, etc) but also subbed green onions for the cilantro/parsley since the store was out of it. We also again used a mix of actual pimentos and roasted peppers.
Meredith made the grilled cheese (pictured below) on sour dough (and each person got half a sandwich).
I again made the tomato soup in the Vitamix using the friction heating. We did not have leftover cobbler filling so I caramelized 1.5 onions and a shallot to then add. Again, a lot of it was to taste, but the ingredients were:
I think that was it though I may have missed something. Anyway, we heated it in the Vitamix and got a very light, airy soup. I think the heavy cream got so beaten in this one which is why it was lighter feeling than last time. Still, very good!
Saturday, August 29, 2015, 12:00 AM
We made Atlantic Beach Pie (local) for a BBQ where we said we'd bring dessert.
Meredith had been wanting to try it since she was intrigued by the crust.
We ended up adding about 3 Tbsp butter since it wasn't coming together (may be because we did the crumbing by hand so it was bigger). Also, while we did buy disposable 8-3/4" pie pans, they were falling apart with the pressure trying to shape the crust. So we moved to a 9" spring-form pan (with the intention of not opening it when serving but it ended up being fine. In general. this made less filling than expected so there was a different shape than I had planned when you look at the final pictures.
The recipe says you can use lemon or lime. We did 4 limes and 1 lemon to make the volume.
The pie was pretty good. Others at the BBQ were surprised that it was saltines but were equally intrigued as we were. And it was pretty good. Somewhat reminiscent of a key lime pie, a lemon meringue pie, and lime bars (a la lemon bars). Also, it was so easy! The crust was really the hardest part. The rest just came together quickly and simply. We'd do this again!
Atlantic Beach Pie (from NPR)
Local Copy (U: "guest", P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Friday, August 28, 2015, 07:00 PM
Meredith wasn’t very hungry and had her own leftovers so I threw together a stir-fry. I used my standard Balsamic Sauce recipe but threw together all of the vegetables.
See the photo below for a picture while cooking. I used mostly leftovers and things I had around. I am probably missing something, but it was
And WestSoy Seitan.
Overall, it was ok. I feel like this was not the best of the balsamic sauce iterations. But it may just be the mix of vegetables. Anyway, it was a quick and easy meal.
Friday, August 28, 2015, 06:00 PM
Meredith made a caprese salad out of tomatoes (Cherokee Purple variety) and basil she grew! Not much more to it, but it is really cool. And they were really good. She did have to cut the tomatoes at a strange angle because of the stupid birds/bunnies/phantoms/??? that has been trying to eat them.
The salad was:
Thursday, August 27, 2015, 08:00 PM
Not the greatest picture but...:
This was kind of a thrown together meal, except that it involved some pretty time intensive things that Meredith had made over the prior weekend.
The beans/eggs thing was a very quick version of Huevos Motulenos except that we used Borracho Beans that Meredith made earlier in the week. The borracho beans were from Homesick Texan variation on Jalapeno beans. Meredith thought they were pretty good but the beans needed salt. Conventional wisdom is to not salt them before cooking since it will turn the skin hard, but she has been reading up on alternative methods. More on that when she does them.
The kale salad (not yet pictured but will be soon) was from The Kitchn [local]. She basically followed the recipe except:
I thought it was pretty good. Meredith was getting tired of it since she had it for so many meals, but it was still tasty. And a good lunch since it has the quinoa.
Kale & Quinoa Salad with Dates, Almonds & Citrus Dressing (from The Kitchn)
Local Copy (U: "guest" P: name of my dog, all lower case)